The Blue Mosque at Sunset

I am in Istanbul for a short while with my family and I could not resist shooting the Blue Mosque at sunset earlier today, especially once I saw the potential for some color in the sky. I only took the Hasselblad X1D with two lenses (45mm f/3.5 and 90mm f/3.2) with me, since I have been using the Fuji GFX 50S quite a bit and this time I wanted to shift my attention to the Hassy. So far, I have been pretty frustrated with the Hasselblad for a number of reasons, mainly due to very slow startup, firmware instability and poor battery life. While I really enjoyed the Fuji GFX 50S as a travel camera, I cannot say that I would recommend the X1D as one. I have missed so many moments waiting for the camera to start up – sometimes it does not properly start up, giving me all kinds of strange errors.

While I am planning to write a complete review of both cameras after I get back home, I just wanted to share a few things about the X1D with our readers, especially for those who are considering the two cameras. While the camera is surely a joy to use, Hasselblad needs to work hard on making the camera a lot more stable than it currently is. Even if I completely dismiss the poor battery life of the X1D (the Fuji GFX 50S has a much better battery life in comparison), the slow start up time, along with some serious firmware issues are the main reasons why I would not recommend the camera at this time. While one can put the camera to sleep instead of completely turning it off by pressing the power button instead of holding it, the idle state slowly eats up the battery and it does not always wake up from the state correctly. I have encountered a number of very annoying firmware bugs such as the following:

Random hangups that cause the camera go haywire, giving me a serious error that asks me to take the battery out and plug it back in

Random “No Card” errors when two cards are present in both banks

Random “Memory Card Full” errors when using two memory cards in overflow config – had to swap cards to make the error go away

Random issues with the camera refusing to change aperture or shutter speed in Aperture Priority and Manual modes – only cure is to turn the camera off and on

I am not sure what Hasselblad is planning to do with firmware updates, but the engineers need to quickly jump to making the camera acceptable to use. So far, it is a very frustrating experience.

Battery life is very poor – the camera does not last for more than a few hundred shots, which is pretty bad. In comparison, I shot all day and never ran out of a single battery with the GFX 50S. In fact, the poor battery life is the reason why I almost missed the below shot of the Blue Mosque – if it was not for a power plug that was close by, I would have walked home tonight without a single image. I really wanted to make a panorama with Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, but the battery died after two shots and I took less than 100 shots after the last charge. Perhaps my battery is defective, but it is surely annoying to deal with such abysmal performance.

Nevertheless, when the X1D works, it surely does a beautiful job! The lenses produce a lot of detail and the 90mm f/3.2 is a stunner at f/5.6, with superb clarity and edge to edge performance:

Hasselblad X1D @ 90mm, ISO 100, 1/15, f/5.6

Minimal processing, just a bit of global contrast and color boost in the image.

Photo Walk in Istanbul

If any of our readers are interested in joining me for a photo walk in Istanbul, please let me know in the comments section below! I will be departing on the 23rd and I can host a photo walk in between, perhaps this weekend would be the best time. Sorry for a late notice, but you know how it goes when you travel with kids. Also, please don’t forget some suggestions on where to meet – I am staying right next to the Blue Mosque / Sultan Ahmet.

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About Nasim Mansurov

Nasim Mansurov is a professional photographer based out of Denver, Colorado. He is the author and founder of Photography Life, along with a number of other online resources. Read more about Nasim here.

Reader Interactions

Comments

1) Waldemar

May 19, 2017 at 4:59 pm

Very nice shot Nasim! Have a nice holiday! Hassi is beyond my reach though, but I’ll still use my Rollei Pro with all excellent lenses. Yeah, it’s film…so what?! Photography is about fun and not pixels only.

Waldemar, I would love to shoot some MF film! Sure we have MF digital today, but keep in mind that it is nowhere close to the actual size of MF film in terms of actual sensor size vs size of MF film. Rollei Pro sounds like a lot of fun!

Nasim, Thank you for your reply in your so BUSY life!!! I read an article recently comparing film/digital photography to CD/LP discussion where LP, as you know, is BACK STRONGLY, VERY STRONGLY, especially for DJ’s!!! And film, supposedly is coming back STRONGLY too and not for it advantage over digital but, YES, for its shortcomings!!! I do believe photography as an ART shall be first of all FUN and as long as one loves what they are doing the joy of doing it is fulfilled. Notwithstanding my writing above having great, latest and greatest, photography gear is great a ….FUN …..too!! That’s what I used to have, my Rollei Pro with all best lenses in this category and YES it still bring me a great FUN to use it.

Rene, that’s a long while ago! I assume Istanbul was far busier back then! It is actually pretty sad to see what’s going on here. When I first visited Istanbul 20 years ago, I remember the streets were incredibly busy with tourists from all over the world. During the past week or so, all I see is Russians and Arabs. Very few people traveling from Europe and practically none from the USA. People think that this region is unsafe, but that’s so far from the truth – it is no different than being in any other major city in Europe. The tourism industry is pretty devastated here, with hotels not being as busy as they usually are and restaurants staying empty all day long. They say this year is a bit better than last year though.

Istanbul was busy then. I was working as a writer/editor for a journal on Middle Eastern political economy and traveling through Turkey on my way home after an extended visit to other parts of the Middle East. As I remember, there were lots of westerners, particularly young people, there. As I went to lots of the popular tourist places, I did meet many people from all over, particularly Europeans. The Turkish people were always friendly and helpful to this young (and somewhat dumb) American. Great food and great shopping in the souk. If is’s still possible, have a lunch/dinner on one of the boats that is on the docks. Can’t get fresher fish than that!

Scott, it was a very clear evening and I could see the details in the distance pretty clearly with my eyes – does not happen every day, but when it does, you can capture a lot of detail from the distance.

As for the choice of aperture, the 90mm lens produces exceptional detail at wide apertures and f/5.6 resulted in very nice sharpness across the frame. The lens does very well between f/5.6 and f/8 range and I usually try not to go above that for best overall performance, unless I need to increase depth of field.

Thanks for sharing, Nasim. I am considering the XD1 and saw another reviewer recently demonstrate the slow start up issue. Certainly not something one would expect from a unit in that price bracket. Very nice colours and photo, though. Happy holidays!

Arron, I’m not sure what Hasselblad can do to reduce the start up time, but it is pretty bad. With the Fuji, it takes about a second for the camera to fully turn on and start shooting, which is not as fast as what a DSLR can do, but still within the acceptable range for me. The Hassy is a slow beast – takes forever to start in comparison. The bad thing is, sometimes the camera bugs out and doesn’t even start, so you have to repeat the double cycle of starting up.

As for the image, it looks fine on my laptop, but looks really funky with the blues being too saturated on my phone. I hate editing when traveling, since my laptop screen does all kinds of weird stuff, even after being calibrated with X-Rite.

Hi Nasim, very nice photo indeed. I would very much like to meet with you in İstanbul for a photo walk and some Turkish coffee but unfortunately I’m out of the city for a week and worse, I have a broken foot! I wish you a great time in İstanbul with your family.

Paul, it is a 1600 year old obelisk from Egypt – used to be a part of a Hippodrome of Constantinople. Two more artifacts are in the same area – many others were demolished / destroyed overtime. It is pretty remarkable!

Hello Nasim. I live on the Asian side of Istanbul and would be pleased to join you for a walk around. It might sound strange but I haven’t visited the historical town for years. Monday 22nd suits me if it’s OK for you. Weather forecast for Monday shows rain, by the way.

I would love to join you but it is too late for me to make adjustment on my shift as it coincides with your visit. I am a maritime pilot in the Strait of Istanbul. I am on duty and will be off 23rd afternoon. I would have liked to thank you personally for the things I got from this wonderful website.

Anyway I am on Asian side and if you need any assistance after 23rd afternoon I would be glad to help you incl. your possible transportation to SAW Sabiha Gokcen Airport.

Dear Nasim. This wonderful photo was very well worth all the troubles and fears of the failing battery you went through. Thank you for your reports in general and this article and especially this great shot.

I understood Nasim saying his computer, Lightroom/Photoshop, crashed when he tried to open hundreds of photos from Israel and then he started another blog….about universal RAW converter….leaving photos from Israel unattended for now.

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